Bush Impeachment

Mayor stint soon over, but Rocky signs on to campaign to investigate Bush

Derek P. Jensen
The Salt Lake Tribune

Article Last Updated: 01/04/2008 02:21:58 PM MST

Posted: 2:21 PM- Rocky Anderson, it turns out, is not stepping aside quietly.
    Joining a list of liberal luminaries including Noam Chomsky and George McGovern, Salt Lake City's outgoing mayor submitted a letter Friday that calls on the House Judiciary Committee to investigate the Bush administration for abuses of power.
    The letter, signed by 18 political and cultural figures, asks House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., to hold hearings on violations of the law under President Bush that include kidnapping and torture, warrantless wiretapping, a war of aggression against Iraq and disseminating false propaganda to deceive the American people.
    It comes on Anderson's last full day in office. Mayor-elect Ralph Becker will be sworn in Monday.
    "To embrace the opportunity to discover and disclose the truth, and to provide for the sort of accountability, transparency and openness due to any democratic people," the letter reads, "will be an important step toward a national recommitment to the rule of law, a renewal of international respect and a return to the national values we Americans have always cherished for ourselves and our posterity."
    The letter suggests a congressional inquiry is critical, given that the courts are unlikely to act.
    "Because the courts are not providing a means of disclosing or holding the Bush administration accountable for serious violations of the law, it is particularly essential that Congress vigorously assume its constitutional prerogative and duty to thoroughly investigate and disclose the truth about the abuses of power and excesses of President Bush, Vice President [Dick] Cheney and others in the administration, all of which have caused extreme damage to our country," the letter continues.
    Misconduct allegations also include the disappearance of people throughout the world, confinement of U.S. citizens without charges or legal recourse and disregard of federal statutory laws.
    Ralph Nader, Daniel Ellsberg, Harry Belafonte, Blase and Theresa Bonpane, Ramsey Clark, Mimi Kennedy, Andy Jacobs Jr., Paul Findley, Kevin Zeese, John Nichols, Tim Carpenter, James Abourezk, Marcus Raskin and Jonathan Kozol round out the list of signatories.
    Anderson has called for the impeachment of Bush and Cheney at protests in Utah's capital and the nation's capital.

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Congressional candidate and state Sen. Ethan Strimling commended U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud for supporting the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney.

Michaud wrote a letter last month to the House Judiciary Committee urging them to hold "vigorous hearings" into the alleged abuses of power by President Bush and Cheney.

Strimling called Michaud's letter courageous.

"We need an investigation into the abuses of this Administration, and there are many of them, and impeachment hearings will provide an opportunity to get facts on the table," Strimling said in a release. "As Congressman Michaud says in his letter, expansions and abuses of power by this Administration will become precedent for future administrations unless we stop them now. I hope Mike's letter will inspire other members of Congress, candidates and members of the public to support his call for a thorough investigation of Bush and Cheney."

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A letter to the editor  .  1/04/2008 11:06 am

Dear Editor: It is essential that we give serious consideration to the resolution to impeach Vice President Cheney. To ignore the allegations would be a strong statement that we live in a culture of denial. The alleged misdeeds of Cheney, if true, are far more serious impeachable issues than presented against Presidents Nixon and Clinton. We constantly parrot that we are a nation of laws. Is the Bush/Cheney administration above the law? If so, let's dispense with the notion that as a republic, we elect our representatives and then hold them accountable to follow and uphold the law. We can then declare that our government is a monarchy and throw out the Constitution. Let's fish or cut bait.

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Impeachmentwalker closes in on his goal

By EVAN LEHMANN, Reformer Washington Bureau

Friday, January 4
WASHINGTON -- John Nirenberg of Brattleboro closed in on the 400-mile mark Thursday in a long, sometimes treacherous, walk lasting more than a month that's meant to promote the impeachment of President Bush.

Trucks roared by the 60-year-old and his walking partner, Frank Enneking, 72, as they trudged along the shoulder of U.S. Route 1 in southern Pennsylvania, steadily moving toward the Maryland border, which they hoped to cross before dark.

Nirenberg is nearly within reach of his goal: shuffling into the Capitol office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in an attempt to spur her toward impeachment proceedings against Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. The walk began on Dec. 1 in Boston.

On Thursday, Nirenberg was about 125 miles away from Capitol Hill -- a trip of about two hours by car -- and expects to reach his destination on Jan. 12. He and Enneking (who left the walk for several days over the holidays for family reasons) are averaging about 15 miles a day.

"In Massachusetts, it was all snow and ice. It was awful," Nirenberg said between breaths during an interview on his cell phone.

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One-Man March on Washington Stops in Philly, Meets Local Activists...and Cops

Thursday, 03 January 2008

by Dave Lindorff

Like a modern-day Johnny Appleseed, Brattleboro, VT-based John Nirenberg stopped midway through his impeachment hike from Boston.s Faneuil Hall to the halls of Congress to plant some seeds of revolt at Philadelphia.s Independence Mall, just a block north from Independence Hall, the old brick building where the nation.s founders wrote and passed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.

Addressing a group of over 100 people who had braved intermittent rain and a blustery cold wind to greet the 60-year-old retired professor of organizational behavior on his 500-mile trek, Nirenberg explained that he had decided to march to the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to tell her it was past time to move forward with impeachment hearings against the president and vice president.

Nirenberg, 60, an Air Force veteran who says he.s .not a movement person,. and who is not part of any organized impeachment campaign, said he had simply grown disgusted with the continuation of a criminal war in Iraq, with reports of officially sanctioned torture by American soldiers and guards of captives in Iraq, Afghanistan and in the so-called .war. on terror, and with the ongoing abuses of power by Bush and Cheney. .I decided I had to do something about it,. he said, simply. His answer: to just start walking. With a goal of 15 miles a day, and the support of impeachment and anti-war advocates all along his chosen route . Highway 1, the so-called Boston Post Road . Nirenberg hopes to make Washington before the end of the month and the start of the next Congressional session, and to bring his personal call for a start to impeachment hearings to the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has been blocking impeachment since taking the speaker.s gavel last November.

While his trek for impeachment was covered in Boston by local media there, and by the Associated Press nationally, as well as by New York.s Village Voice news weekly, his arrival in Philadelphia, home of the Constitution and its impeachment clause, went completely unheralded in the local media. None of the city.s major media sent reporters or even a photographer. Nirenberg and some hardy locals, at the end of a rally on Independence Mall, took an impromptu walk for the 14 blocks to the offices of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, Philadelphia.s two daily papers, and there Nirenberg offered editors at both city desks an easy interview. Although cheap news and press handouts are the papers. stock and trade in these days or staff cutbacks and shriveled editorial staffs, neither obliged.

Nor did any radio or TV reporters show up at the Philadelphia event, though they have regularly covered far less significant events involving far fewer people at the same location.

Local police from the Philadelphia Police Civil Affairs unit were on the job though, energetically protecting the local citizenry and the Inquirer building from Nirenberg.s .threatening. free speech activities. Two members of the department, a man and a woman, dressed in plain clothes and wearing no police identification, showed up in the Inquirer building lobby at the security guard.s desk within moments of Nirenberg.s arrival there and began questioning him about his plans. They made no mention their police department affiliation until asked directly if they were reporters.

It was a sorry commentary on the sorry state of civil liberties and of the Constitution, as well as on the sorry state of the nation.s media, that Nirenberg.s remarkable one-man protest . a march from Boston to Washington, DC in the dead of winter to petition Congress . would be met in Philadelphia by no elected officials and no press, but rather by the police.

Nirenberg, in the blog on his trek website, writes:

.Rather than end the rally after the moment of silence, we decided that since the news media hadn.t come out we would take the story to them. About 20 people marched through Philadelphia to City Hall, turned west and ended up at the Philadelphia Inquirer offices where we failed to get their interest but stirred Gar Joseph, (Sunday) City Editor of the Daily News, to think twice before dismissing the movement and my walk through town. We.ll know in a day or two if we made any sense to him but he seemed to awaken to the fact that this isn.t a partisan issue but an historic one..

Nirenberg.s plan is to walk straight to the office of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and there to demand that she stop blocking a hearing on Rep. Dennis Kucinich.s H. Res 799 Cheney impeachment bill. He would also like to see a bill calling for Bush.s impeachment, and an end to funding for the Iraq War.

Nirenberg says the abuses and crimes of the Bush administration, and the abject failure of the Democratic-led Congress to act led him to .activate my citizenship,. and begin his one-man march.
In a letter to Speaker Pelosi, announcing his intention to march from Boston to her Washington office, he wrote:

.Your repeated statements that impeachment is off the table have sent the message, intentionally or otherwise, that no basis for impeachment exists. Consequently, succeeding Presidents can assume that they, too, have the powers that Mr. Bush claims under the contrived construct of `a unitary executive..

.If Congress does not utilize the Constitutional remedy of impeachment, which was designed for precisely this kind of situation, how can Bush and Cheney be held accountable for any of their lies and crimes? If Congress does not open impeachment hearings, if no act of censure is introduced, then the courts, the people, and history will clearly assume that Congress approved of the entire spectrum of illegal acts, abuses, and immorality perpetrated by this administration..
To date, Pelosi.s office has not told Nirenberg, or announced publicly, whether the Speaker will meet with the one-man demonstration.

Those interested in supporting Nirenberg.s effort, in following his progress, or in meeting him at any of his remaining stops along the way, should visit his website:

http://www.MarchInMyName.org/

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Watch on the resigned

Memoirs from Richard C. Clark, George Tenet, Alan Greenspan and Scott McClellan, the Downing Street memo, international support after 9/11 this administration eroded to a few in one year, no-bid contracts, Halliburton/KRB, Abu Ghraib, Enron, the firing of attorneys general, Valerie Plame, the environment, Hurricane Katrina, the deficit, Iraq, testimonies of retired generals, torture, wiretaps, the 2000 and 2004 elections . are just a few examples of what this administration did and oversaw.

Throughout, the media spared it authentic inquiry. Nothing became of these disclosures, save vacuous excuses, obfuscation and frivolous bravado from the great political divide.

Scrutiny has degenerated to enthusiasts with Internet access, limited to cut-and-paste and name-calling. Loyalty has become fanaticism; slander has replaced honest exchange; and misdirection defends accountability.

Accountability demands this administration be called to task, but it won't be. Nothing will happen to Bush or his staff for these incidents. Why? Nothing has happened. Consequently, congressional Democrats and Republicans are united. Democracy is metaphorical.

. John Rankin, Seattle

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Move to Impeach Cheney Gains Support in Congress

Tim King Salem-News.com

More Democrats signing on to the idea of a Vice-Presidential impeachment, could it really happen?

A House Resolution to impeach U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney, Dennis Kucinich's H.R. 333, is gathering more support. The national impeachment continues to grow and generate increasing interest since being referred to the House Judiciary Committee last month, a Kucinich spokesperson said. As a member of that committee, Representative Robert Wexler and two other committee members, Luis Gutierrez and Tammy Baldwin, have joined together in demanding that the legal action against Cheney moves forward. Congressman Robert Wexler of Florida is just one elected official who says the charges are too serious to ignore. "There is credible evidence that the Vice President abused the power of his office, and not only brought us into an unnecessary war but violated the civil liberties and privacy of American citizens. It is the constitutional duty of Congress to hold impeachment hearings" He went on to say that he believes Vice President Dick Cheney and the Bush Administration have demonstrated a consistent pattern of abusing the law and misleading Congress and the American people. "We see the consequences of these actions abroad in Iraq and at home through the violations of our civil liberties,â. Wexler said. Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, stated in August that published reports identify, "the Vice-Presidentâ..s willful and repeated disregard for the rule of law, international treaties, environmental protections, and the common good." Wexler and Baldwin joined Congressman Luis Gutierrez in penning an Op-Ed that calls for committee hearings on a bill to impeach Dick Cheney on a variety of charges that include allegations of manipulating intelligence to boost the case for the war with Iraq, a very serious charge.
The Op-Ed that ran in the Philadelphia Enquirer December 27th (Impeach Cheney now- The allegations that he abused power are credible.)

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20071227_Impeach_Cheney_now.html?referrer=digg
) states, "The issues at hand are too serious to ignore, including credible allegations of abuse of power that if proven may well constitute high crimes and misdemeanors under our constitution."

"The charges against Vice President Cheney relate to his deceptive actions leading up to the Iraq war, the revelation of the identity of a covert agent for political retaliation, and the illegal wiretapping of American citizens."

House leaders and the leading Democratic presidential candidates don't support impeachment. One thing they point to is the timeframe and expense that surrounded the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton, citing how the business of politics in the U.S. ground to a near standstill as the nation's attention was diverted by the effort to expose the President over a sex act with a White House intern. Gutierrez saying hearings, "need not tie up Congress for a year and shut down the nation."

The White House, in a statement, said Democrats were shirking responsibilities on issues such as childrensâ.. [sic] health insurance "and yet they find time to waste an afternoon on an impeachment vote against the vice president. â.¦ This is why Americans shake their head in wonder about the priorities of this Congress."

But Kucinich and Wexler and others in Congress say they won't be swayed as they utilize an existing arm of the Democratic system to see that impeachment proceedings are brought forward against the elected leader of out nation's second highest political office

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Coalition for Voting Integrity

Highlights of We Won't take It Any More (Iraq http://www.slcgov.com/mayor/)

"We raise our voices in unison to say to President Bush, to Vice President Cheney, to other members of the Bush Administration (past and present), to a majority of Congress, including Utah.s entire congressional delegation, and to much of the mainstream media: .You have failed us miserably and we won.t take it any more..

.While we had every reason to expect far more of you, you have been pompous, greedy, cruel, and incompetent as you have led this great nation to a moral, military, and national security abyss..

.You have breached trust with the American people in the most egregious ways. You have utterly failed in the performance of your jobs. You have undermined our Constitution, permitted the violation of the most fundamental treaty obligations, and betrayed the rule of law..

.You have engaged in, or permitted, heinous human rights abuses of the sort never before countenanced in our nation.s history as a matter of official policy. You have sent American men and women to kill and be killed on the basis of lies, on the basis of shifting justifications, without competent leadership, and without even a coherent plan for this monumental blunder..

.We are here to tell you: We won.t take it any more!.

.You have acted in direct contravention of values that we, as Americans who love our country, hold dear. You have deceived us in the most cynical, outrageous ways. You have undermined, or allowed the undermining of, our constitutional system of checks and balances among the three presumed co-equal branches of government. You have helped lead our nation to the brink of fascism, of a dictatorship contemptuous of our nation.s treaty obligations, federal statutory law, our Constitution, and the rule of law..

..........In the case of the President and Vice President, this means impeachment and removal from office, without any further delay from a complacent, complicit Congress, the Democratic majority of which cares more about political gain in 2008 than it does about the vindication of our Constitution, the rule of law, and democratic accountability.

It means the election of people as President and Vice President who, unlike most of the presidential candidates from both major parties, have not aided and abetted in the perpetration of the illegal, tragic, devastating invasion and occupation of Iraq. And it means the election of people as President and Vice President who will commit to return our nation to the moral and strategic imperative of refraining from torturing human beings.

In the case of the majority of Congress, it means electing people who are diligent enough to learn the facts, including reading available National Intelligence Estimates, before voting to go to war. It means electing to Congress men and women who will jealously guard Congress.s sole prerogative to declare war. It means electing to Congress men and women who will not submit like vapid lap dogs to presidential requests for blank checks to engage in so-called preemptive wars, for legislation permitting warrantless wiretapping of communications involving US citizens, and for dangerous, irresponsible, saber-rattling legislation like the recent Kyl-Lieberman amendment.

We must avoid the trap of focusing the blame solely upon President Bush and Vice-President Cheney. This is not just about a few people who have wronged our country . and the world. They were enabled by members of both parties in Congress, they were enabled by the pathetic mainstream news media, and, ultimately, they have been enabled by the American people . 40% of whom are so ill-informed they still think Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks . a people who know and care more about baseball statistics and which drunken starlets are wearing underwear than they know and care about the atrocities being committed every single day in our name by a government for which we need to take responsibility.

As loyal Americans, without regard to political partisanship -- as veterans, as teachers, as religious leaders, as working men and women, as students, as professionals, as businesspeople, as public servants, as retirees, as people of all ages, races, ethnic origins, sexual orientations, and faiths -- we are here to say to the Bush administration, to the majority of Congress, and to the mainstream media: .You have violated your solemn responsibilities. You have undermined our democracy, spat upon our Constitution, and engaged in outrageous, despicable acts. You have brought our nation to a point of immorality, inhumanity, and illegality of immense, tragic, unprecedented proportions..

.But we will live up to our responsibilities as citizens, as brothers and sisters of those who have suffered as a result of the imperial bullying of the United States government, and as moral actors who must take a stand: And we will, and must, mean it when we say .We won.t take it any more...

If we want principled, courageous elected officials, we need to be principled, courageous, and tenacious ourselves. History has demonstrated that our elected officials are not the leaders . the leadership has to come from us. If we don.t insist, if we don.t persist, then we are not living up to our responsibilities as citizens in a democracy . and our responsibilities as moral human beings. If we remain silent, we signal to Congress and the Bush administration . and to candidates running for office . and to the world . that we support the status quo.

Silence is complicity. Only by standing up for what.s right and never letting down can we say we are doing our part.

Our government, on the basis of a campaign we now know was entirely fraudulent, attacked and militarily occupied a nation that posed no danger to the United States. Our government, acting in our name, has caused immense, unjustified death and destruction.

It all started five years ago, yet where have we, the American people, been? At this point, we are responsible. We get together once in a while at demonstrations and complain about Bush and Cheney, about Congress, and about the pathetic news media. We point fingers and yell a lot. Then most people politely go away until another demonstration a few months later. How many people can honestly say they have spent as much time learning about and opposing the outrages of the Bush administration as they have spent watching sports or mindless television programs during the past five years? Escapist, time-sapping sports and insipid entertainment have indeed become the opiate of the masses. Why is this country so sound asleep? Why do we abide what is happening to our nation, to our Constitution, to the cause of peace and international law and order? Why are we not doing all in our power to put an end to this madness? We should be in the streets regularly and students should be raising hell on our campuses. We should be making it clear in every way possible that apologies or convoluted, disingenuous explanations just don.t cut it when presidential candidates and so many others voted to authorize George Bush and his neo-con buddies to send American men and women to attack and occupy Iraq.

Let.s awaken, and wake up the country by committing here and now to do all each of us can to take our nation back. Let them hear us across the country, as we ask others to join us: .We won.t take it any more!.

I implore you: Draw a line. Figure out exactly where your own moral breaking point is. How much will you put up with before you say .No more. and mean it? "